


Watch Where You're Going

by SingingInTheRaiin



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Jon has bad luck with Leitners, Jon is still technically the Archivist but doesn't quite know how to use that, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28094793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: A younger Jon Sims picks up the wrong book while packing up his late grandmother's things, and finds himself hurtled forward in time to the apocalypse. With the help of Martin and a family member who had mysteriously vanished during his childhood, Jon must find a way back to his own time, where he can hopefully stop all of it from ever happening.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 39





	Watch Where You're Going

It was just a bit scary, when he stopped to think about it for too long. To think about the fact that he was an adult now, and he had to take on many new responsibilities. Jon was, for all intents and purposes, alone in the world, with nobody to rely on other than himself. 

He’d already sold the house, the place he’d been raised in since his parents died when he was too young to remember, and most of it had been packed up over the last few weeks. Now it seemed far too empty, full of none of the life it had contained when his grandmother had still been alive. Now there were just a few things left that he needed to take care of, including his grandmother’s room. 

And oh, thinking about his grandmother did hurt. Of course his relationship with her had never been perfect; it had always suffered from a lack of understanding of each other. But she was still the woman who had taken him in and raised him even after going through the pain of outliving all three of her children. He might not have even sold the house at all if it hadn’t been for her instructing him to do so. She’d said that if he kept it, it would just become a house full of ghosts, and he knew she was right. It’s not as though Jon had any plans to stay in this town he’d grown up in. 

Once the house was officially empty and in the hands of its new owner, Jon would be on the way to London to attend university there. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, but hoped that at least moving to the big city would present him with the various possibilities.

That was still a little while away, though. For now, he needed to finish clearing out the house. So he took a few deep breaths, then made his way into his grandmother’s room. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d been in here before, since it had always been her personal space. Which was fair, since she rarely ever entered Jon’s room either- they’d both valued their privacy too much to infringe on each other’s.

Which meant that it felt quite strange to step inside and look around for longer than just a brief glimpse. It wasn’t really messy, but it did look lived-in, like his grandmother could come back at any moment and snap at him to get out of her room. Of course he knew that that wouldn’t happen, though.

It was a bit overwhelming to try and figure out where to start, and it’s not as though Jon had any friends that he’d trust to do this with him, so he just looked around at random before deciding to dive in with the large bookcase up against one wall. There were a few random odds and ends on it, but for the most part, it was full of books. 

Something that caught his eye immediately, and surprised him a little bit, was a shelf that only had photographs. One was of Jon’s parents with their arms around each other, looking overjoyed. And right next to it was a slightly smaller photo of Jon’s mom in a hospital bed, cradling a newborn infant that had to be Jon. There were also some older pictures of the aunt he vaguely remembered from before she’d gone missing, and the uncle that had died years before Jon was born. Jon had never seen these particular pictures before, and wondered why his grandmother had never shown him. They didn’t ultimately seem any more special than the ones in the family photo album that had always been kept downstairs, but maybe they’d held a deeper meaning to his grandmother. 

Jon carefully stacked all of the photos into a cardboard box labeled ‘keep’, then moved on to the books. Most of them were just regular books that held no value beyond the fact that his grandmother had read them, and Jon put them in the ‘give away’ box. He paused when he pulled out a generic detective thriller, and a skinnier book flopped down. It must have been tucked up behind the others so that it wouldn’t be visible without actually removing the books in front of it.

Curious, Jon pulled out the hidden book, and frowned. It didn’t look anything like what he’d expect his grandmother to have, titled,  _ The Complete Apocalypse Survival Guide _ . The binding was faded but had probably once been a bright green. Jon furrowed his eyebrows and curiously flipped the book open, then froze when he saw a hauntingly familiar seal on the inside front cover. It was too late to fling the book away, though, because between one blink and the next, Jon was gone, leaving the book to flutter gently to the floor of the empty room.

,,,

Martin was in the middle of telling a somewhat embarrassing story of how he’d not known about tempering eggs the first time he’d tried to bake something even remotely difficult when Jon came to an abrupt stop, which halted him mid-sentence. “Jon? Are you alright? Do we need to find you a private space somewhere?”

Jon blinked and looked around, and Martin realized that for the first time since the start of all this, Jon’s eyes looked normal, without that slightly eerie glow. Before Martin could ask about it, Jon loudly exclaimed, “What the fuck?” He started to look around frantically, but seemed unprepared for the weight of his backpack, and stumbled slightly.

Even though Martin had absolutely no idea what was going on, he reached out steady Jon, only to frown when Jon yanked himself out of Martin’s reach. “Jon, what’s-”

“Who are you? Where are we? What the hell is going on?”

Even more confused now, Martin looked around to see if he could spot anything in the immediate landscape that could clue him in as to what was going on. But right now they were in one of the in-between places, and besides that, he’d thought that Jon couldn’t really get affected by any of the domains anyways. Martin forced himself to just take in a few deep breaths. If they were going to survive whatever weirdness was happening here, at least one of them would have to remain calm. “It’s me, Martin.” He hesitated before asking, “Do you know who you are?”   


“Of course I know who I am!” Jon snapped. It was so reminiscent of their early days in the archives that Martin couldn’t help feeling somewhat nostalgic about it. “This can’t possibly be real,” Jon muttered to himself. “Reading a book can’t actually end the world.”

Martin wanted to move closer to offer some comfort (for both Jon and himself, if he was being honest), but he didn’t want to spook Jon when there was clearly something weird going on. Well, weirder than normal, anyways. “A book? Jon, this all started when you read Elias’ letter, don’t you remember?” The puzzled look on Jon’s face made it clear that he did not, in fact, remember. 

The faint sound of screaming that they’d left behind a few hours ago suddenly started up, louder than it should have been, given how far they’d walked since then. Martin’s eyes widened in alarm. Jon’s eyes were normal, and he had no idea what was going on around him, and now Martin was filled with a new fear. Were they vulnerable to this hell-scape now? Jon had always been so confident that he’d be able to keep both of them safe, but now he was apparently clueless, and Martin wasn’t sure he could trust in Jon’s innate protection. 

The screaming only served to put Jon more on edge, and he looked paler than usual. “What was that?” The screaming got louder and louder, like it was getting closer to them. 

Even though he would normally respect Jon’s wish to not be touched at the moment, he wasn’t sure how aware Jon was of anything, so Martin grabbed Jon by the wrist and started running. “We've got to get out of here!” Not that he had any clue where he was going or where it would be safer, but at least moving felt better than standing around and waiting to get attacked. 

Jon let himself get pulled along without much of a struggle, but that didn’t help much when Martin’s lungs began to burn. He wasn’t used to running this much, because he’d always trusted it when Jon said he’d keep Martin safe. But Martin wasn’t going to give up, because right now he had to keep Jon safe, at least long enough for them to figure out what was happening.

Just when Martin thought his legs might give out right from under him, someone grabbed him by his free hand and yanked him to the side. He made sure to keep his grip tight enough to pull Jon with him, and then a door slammed shut behind them and a dim lightbulb flickered on. Martin took a moment to catch his breath, then looked warily at their savior. He didn’t recognize her, and knew better than to just trust strangers.

He was about to ask who she was and what she wanted with them (because he had trouble believing that anybody these days would help someone out for nothing in return), but Jon took a small step forward and spoke before Martin could. “Marmalade?”

The woman blinked a few times before squinting and looking at Jon like he was suddenly a lot more interesting. Martin didn’t think it boded well when avatars were intrigued by Jon, because they tended to be the ones who hurt him. “Er- yes. Sorry, but do we- do we know each other? It’s just that I don’t… well.”

Jon nodded earnestly. “I’m your nephew, Jonathan Sims. And you look just like your pictures…” he trailed off and a new understanding seemed to hit him, even though Martin was quite confused by all this. “Have you- have you been here this whole time?”

The women- Marmalade?- looked at Jon like he was a ghost. “Jon? But you’re… you’re so…” she let out a soft gasp before slumping back against the nearest wall. “I thought I’d only been gone for a few months, but now… it must’ve been at least thirty years, if you’re really Jon Sims.”

Jon furrowed his eyebrows. “Thirty years…?” Then he gasped as well. “The book, were you brought here by the book?”

The woman nodded. “Yes! That stupid thing. I thought I’d died and gone straight to hell when I got here, and to be honest, I’m still not sure where we are or what’s going on. You’re the first normal people I’ve seen since I got here.”

Jon turned to look at Martin, who had just been beginning to feel left out. “Er, Martin, you said?” Martin nodded. “What year is it?”

Martin just stared at Jon, and glanced at the woman, but neither of them seemed to be kidding around. Martin frowned. “2020, I suppose. Though time works so strangely now that who really knows. What year did you think it was?”

“1993,” the woman answered at the same time that Jon said, “2005.” Jon glanced over at the woman before looking back at Martin. “Do you know what’s going on? I think that my aunt and I were both somehow brought here by a book. It had the same seal as- as another book I encountered when I was younger, from the library of Jurgen-”

“Leitner,” Martin finished, feeling grim. Jon nodded, but didn’t look too surprised that Martin knew. Maybe that made sense, since Martin was apparently the foremost expert on everything at the moment. It was quite strange to be in a situation where he knew so much more than Jon did. “So this book brought you both to the future, but from different times?” He turned to look at Jon’s aunt. “And you- sorry, is your name really Marmalade?”

She let out a startled laugh before shaking her head. “Oh- no, no, of course not. That’s just what my family calls me. I’m Margaret, but most people call me Mar. And you are…?”   


“Martin Blackwood.” He thought about adding the title of Jon’s boyfriend, but figured that it would only make things more confusing. “I worked with Jon before all of this. We’re actually heading to London because we’re trying to see if there’s any way to put an end to this. But now I’m not sure exactly what’s going on. I don’t know if things can ever go back to ‘normal’, but if we can at least help stop some of the suffering, then that would be…”

Margaret nodded in agreement. “Yeah. This place is horrible. I guess it’s fitting that a book about the apocalypse would bring us here.”

Jon gently pulled his hand free from Martin’s grip and crossed his arms over his chest. “So Aunt Mar read the book and came to this time and disappeared from our time entirely. I read it and ended up in the body of my older self? Why would it be different for each of us if we both read the same book? And if I disappeared in 2005 then how did I age and get a job and have a life in 2020? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Are you really expecting time travel to make any sense?” Margaret asked with a small laugh.

Martin arched one eyebrow. “Are you really expecting for anything to make any sense these days?”

Jon sighed, then shrugged one shoulder. “Point. Hm. Well, maybe since we don’t have any better ideas, we can keep going with Martin’s idea of going to London and stopping this? Maybe that would automatically send us home?”   


There was a heavy feeling in the pit of Martin’s stomach. Of course he was helplessly in love with Jon no matter what, but he couldn’t help missing  _ his _ Jon. And besides that, if his math was right then this Jon was only eighteen, and that just made things- well, weird. 

But of course there were more important things at stake then just Martin’s relationship with Jon. He cleared his throat to get the attention of the other two. “I hate to be the one to bring this up, but I’m not exactly sure how we’ll safely make it to London. The only reason Jon and I have been alright thus far is because Jon’s been protecting us, but now…” He trailed off, not wanting to call this version of Jon useless, but not sure how else to word it.

Margaret reached over to pat Martin on the shoulder like he was an old friend. “Don’t worry, I’ve been doing alright on my own- or at the very least, I’m still alive, so I think we’ll be okay as long as we’re very careful.”

“And how will we find our way to London? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the world isn’t quite how we remember it.”

Margaret grinned and pulled something out of her pocket. It took Martin a moment to realize that it was a car GPS. “I found this back when I first got here. And let me tell you, there are quite a few things I would’ve played with for a lot longer if I’d had the time. I didn’t realize this was the future, but the future has a lot of cool toys. This’ll do for now, though. I haven’t noticed myself going around in circles, so hopefully whatever weirdness is going on isn’t affecting the satellites. So, are you ready to go?”

Martin let out a soft sigh, but he knew that there was only one right answer. Hiding away wouldn’t fix any of this. And besides that, hiding away with the Jon who’d loved him back was a lot more tempting than with this version. So he nodded once. “Yeah, let’s go.” 


End file.
